Thanksgiving is a real time of food traditions for us. Each of my kids has a dish that to them thanksgiving would not be Thanksgiving without.
My oldest (28 yo) daughter's is green bean casserole (my home made, not the soup one), which is funny because when she was very young, she said it "scared her". No idea why, just one of those silly kid things.
My oldest (23 yo) son's is his paternal great-grandmother's brown sugar pie. She was a formidable woman, from all accounts; President of the WCTU back in the day. She ran a boarding house during the depression and later ran a hotel dining room and her brown sugar pie was locally famous. The recipe has never been published and I have the only know copy to exist, written in her own hand. I have bequeathed it to my son.
My youngest (14 yo) son has two: succotash ( an older Southern Living recipe using corn, butterbeans, onions, butter and cream) and my poached garlic soup.
Youngest (11 yo) daughter's is Coca Cola salad, a recipe which came down through my mother's family. It is so old, it originally called for plain gelatin, but has been adapted over the years to use Jell-o. It has dark sweet cherries, pineapple and pecans in it and is served with a dressing of cream cheese, mayo and cream on the side.
My husband's "essential" dish is sweet roasted sweet potatoes, apples and onions. His uncle was a sweet potato farmer in South Carolina.
Of course, there is always roast turkey (wild, when I can get it LOL), mashed potatoes, giblet gravy, and another veg or two (squash, carrots or some kind of leafy green like kale or collards).
In the middle of the day, football or frisbee in the yard is always played by everyone but me, who watches and encourages from the front porch between forays into the kitchen to check on things before dinner, which we always eat later in the afternoon rather than the middle of the day. We all hold hands around the table for giving our thanks to God in a group Blessing as well as each individual tells what they are most grateful for. Cleanup is cooperative followed by sitting around the firepit, reminiscing about loved ones who are no longer with us, memories we all share, and much jocularity and laughter. We are FUNNY people, I tell ya!
I love Thanksgiving..........
Angel
"There was one of two things I had a right to – liberty, or death.
If I could not have one I would have the other; for no man should take me alive."
Harriet Tubman
"The President eats dirt and excrement for his daily meals, likes it and tries to force it on The States."
Walt Whitman
"The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in time of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality" Dante "The Inferno"